Artemis. Jean Shinoda Bolen

are delighted with their spunk and abilities.

      It is easy to think of Atalanta as a high-spirited, confident girl who, small as she is, stands toe to toe with these hunters, insisting on what she thinks is true and protesting when something is not fair. Men like these take pride in such daughters. They are “Daddy's best buddy” or “Daddy's little girl.” This kind of relationship often comes to an end as puberty approaches and it's time to establish physical and emotional distance from the budding woman the daughter is becoming. This transition may go smoothly or may be tempestuous and fraught with emotional outbursts. A best-buddy phase with a father who is admired and a good role model supports give-and-take, encourages assertiveness, and recognizes developing skills. These young women tend to become like their fathers or father figures in certain ways that give them a sense of pride, because their fathers are proud of them.

      In The Hunger Games (Collins, 2008), Katniss Everdeen is sixteen when the trilogy begins. The happiest time in the week for her is when she goes with her father into the woods, lakes, and meadows outside the District-12 fence, beyond which citizens are forbidden to go. There, he teaches her to hunt with a bow and arrow, to bring down food for the family, and to hunt game to trade. Katniss has both instinct and skill; her arrows fly where she sends them. After her father's death, Katniss becomes the sole provider for her mother and sister. Her mother withdraws into her grief and stops functioning, and it is up to Katniss to look after the family.

      Both Atalanta and Katniss excel as hunters, taught by their fathers or father figures to be competent and survive on their own. Katniss clearly identifies with her father and takes over as provider and protector as much as she can at his death. Her mother is clearly not a role model. In fact, both Atalanta's and Katniss' mothers are ineffectual. And, although Atalanta's father rejects her and orders her exposed on a mountaintop to die, in psychological terms, both are “fathers' daughters.” They are women who are decisive, can act swiftly, choose targets or goals of their own, and have the focus and skill to hit what they aim for. Their worlds are outside the household that is the realm of “mothers' daughters.”

      In the United States toward the end of the 1960s and 1970s, consciousness-raising groups became the foundation of the Women's Movement. Here, women learned about sexism and inequality. They became determined that this had to change, and they encouraged each other to make a difference. Women shared information, wrote, marched, testified, had demonstrations, and entered formerly all-male enclaves and professions. Ms. magazine began publication. Couples worked to create egalitarian relationships and families. As a result, girls with Artemis qualities circa 1970 and after were likely to have parental approval to be active and confident. Spirited three-year-old girls with minds of their own could express what they wanted and felt, and still bask in the approval of their fathers and mothers. No more Little Miss Muffetts sitting on tuffets eating her curds and whey. Now, far from being frightened away by the spider, these emanicipated girls could be free to investigate and explore all the critters and creatures in the outdoors with interest. Indeed, little Ms. Muffett was “free to be you and me,” and sang the songs to prove it!

      Send Word, Bear Mother

      Helen Stoltzfus, author of and principal performer in the award-winning documentary film Send Word, Bear Mother (www.theoi.com), based her work on her own true story, a saga that began with her illness and infertility. She had seen many specialists without success over many years. With symptoms of fatigue and infertility, and no satisfactory explanations for either, Helen joined a support group for people with life-threatening and chronic illnesses. In an exercise in which she was supposed to tap into inner sources of healing and imagination, a skeptical Helen unexpectedly began having a series of profound encounters with a mother grizzly bear spirit who appeared to her in dreams and came to her unbidden in fantasy. She experienced these as powerful visitations from the spirit world. They empowered her to try one more specialist in her effort to get pregnant.

      This doctor diagnosed Helen as having endometriosis—a condition in which cells that are part of the lining of the uterus that are normally shed during menstruation can grow anywhere in the peritoneum (the space that holds all our internal organs below the diaphragm)—and recommended surgery. Helen had the surgery, but there seemed to be no satisfactory explanation for her condition. So she began to search for possible causes. She learned that environmental toxins, dioxins in particular, had been linked to endometriosis. Meanwhile, the mother grizzly bear visitations continued. This prodded her to learn all she could about bears, including that bears are threatened by the same toxins as humans.

      The bear-mother spirit persisted relentlessly in Helen's psyche, calling her to go to Alaska where the bears live. As soon after her surgery as she could, she heeded the call and went to Denali National Park by herself. She did not feel well. The effects of chronic fatigue and the operation had sapped her energy, and travel took even more out of her. She went, like sick people going to Lourdes, with the hope of being healed. Immediately upon entering the park, a mother grizzly with two cubs walked across the road in front of the tour bus. (In Denali, tourists are driven on buses through the park, while bears roam freely.) This was like a powerful waking dream to Helen. The real and the symbolic came together. While Helen may have appeared to be just another tourist, for her this was truly a pilgrimage.

      No logical or practical decision brought Helen to Alaska, but rather a persistent and compelling message to come. The mother-bear symbol showed up over and over—not just in dreams and thoughts, but also in outer experiences. Helen encountered bear images in various art forms and in references in conversations. Suddenly, the idea or symbol of bear seemed to be everywhere. The urge or compelling desire to see real bears in their natural setting grew and set her on course for Denali. Only after going to Alaska did she come to understand the connection between what toxins had done to her body and the similar dangers they held for bears—as well as the larger implication of the danger to the wilderness and to Mother Nature herself.

      The spirit of the bear gave an urgency to Helen's desire to do something with her new knowledge. She found her means of expression in her work. She wrote and staged a one-woman performance piece that became the basis for the film Send Word, Bear Mother, in which she played the principal role. Through this film and in the work that came from her inner/outer journey, Helen became an activist with a personal mission to foster an awareness of the connection between toxins, infertility, and the danger of the disappearing wilderness. And what's more, she became pregnant one month after she came back from Denali. Nine months later, her daughter, Lydia, was born.

      “Send Word, Bear Mother” was Helen's personal healing chant, one that she adapted from a Sioux chant.

       Send word, bear mother

       Send word, bear mother

       I'm having a hard time

       Send word, bear mother

       Send word, bear mother

       I'm having a bad time.

      Helen's encounters with the mother-bear spirit had a she-who-must-be-obeyed energy about them that persisted until she heeded the message, went to Alaska, and saw real bear mothers. The bear had a grip on her imagination. The chant was a plea for help to the bear-mother spirit—for healing.

      Christine is another woman who had a profound encounter with mother bear, who came to her in a dream. In this dream, her arm was held in the jaws of a powerful mother bear who would not let go. She could neither shake the bear off nor get help from men in the dream. Then she came to a large, familiar statue of a mother bear with two cubs that she had often seen at the University of California Medical Center. In her dream, when she placed her hands on the statue, the bear finally let go of her arm.

      As we talked about her dream, Christine intuitively connected her recent obsession about having a baby with the mother bear. She kept noticing pregnant women and women with babies; intrusive thoughts about becoming pregnant herself came into her mind and were followed by anxiety. She wanted and feared this. She had her course